TAIPEI (Reuters) -The United Nations resolution that led to Beijing assuming China’s seat from Taipei was about switching representation and did not mention Taiwan, the EU said, commenting on an escalating dispute over the interpretation of the key document.
China says that 1971’s U.N. resolution 2758, which led to Beijing taking over representing China from Taipei, gives international legal backing to its territorial claims over Taiwan, and reiterated that point in a long foreign ministry statement last week.
Taiwan says Beijing is trying to use its “misleading” interpretation of the resolution to create the legal basis for a future attempt to invade and take over the island.
Taiwan’s formal name is the Republic of China, and it held on to China’s U.N. seat post-1949, when its government fled to the island after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists, until the 1971 resolution was passed.
“United Nations Resolution 2758 is very short – only 150 words. And among those 150 words, the word ‘Taiwan’ does not appear,” an EU spokesperson said in an emailed statement
“The resolution switched representation in the United Nations from the ‘representatives of Chiang Kai-shek’ to the ‘representatives of the Government of the People’s Republic of China’,” the spokesperson added, referring to Taiwan’s then-leader.
China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The comments also come after the U.S. State Department said last week that China was intentionally mis-characterising and misusing the resolution as part of broader “coercive attempts to isolate Taiwan from the international community”.
The EU spokesperson said: “As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has a special responsibility in upholding the rules-based international order, the United Nations Charter and international law. This includes the prohibition of the use of force and the maintenance of international peace and security.”
No EU member state has formal ties with Taiwan, whose government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.
But Taiwan has sought greater support from Europe, with its foreign minister visiting the continent twice last month.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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